Looking at Music

The Museum of Modern Art has a new show that looks at the period of time in the 60’s and 70’s when artists were expanding their creative horizons. “Looking at Music” gathers choice examples of cross-media works, where artists tried doing music, or musicians started making films. It documents an era that foreshadows our modern world of “DIY”, where artists can dabble in all parts of the creative process.

The New York Times reports:

Today it is not unusual for artists to moonlight as rock stars (hello, Martin Creed) or for musicians (Kim Gordon) to dabble in the gallery world. This phenomenon can be traced back to the 1960s, when being creative meant doing a little bit of everything (substances included). The lines dividing art, music and film were blurry enough to allow Laurie Anderson, Bruce Nauman and Yoko Ono, among others, to shift from object making to performance and back again.

“Looking at Music,” at the Museum of Modern Art, a recently opened exhibition of about 40 works from the museum’s collection, emphasizes the experimental nature of the late 1960s and early ’70s. As its curator, Barbara London, writes, “It seemed as though every artist of this time was in a band.”

NYT: “Artist as Musician, and the Other Way Around”